Southern Nevada developers and their elected courtiers, led by Gov. Jim Gibbons, put on a little show recently. They made dramatic claims and commissioned alarming statistics in an effort to sway a skeptical citizenry.

Don't be fooled.

The issue is federal land surrounding Las Vegas. Developers want to be able to buy this land and build on it. But they are running into resistance from public land managers, urban planners and those who think maybe there are some other ways for Las Vegas to grow over the next few years.

For those of us who live in Las Vegas and keep our eyes open while we travel around, the scare tactics are entertaining. The RGR Group, a local consulting firm, released an analysis this month that said there's enough land left in the metro area for only six more years of development.

Six years? That's pretty funny.

First of all, the largest planned community in the valley, Summerlin, is only about halfway built, and is not expected to be completed until 2025. That's 17 years away. Summerlin has about 100,000 residents now, and is expected to double that number upon completion.

Another major planned community, Park Highlands in North Las Vegas, hasn't started building yet on its 2,700 acres. The community eventually should be home to 50,000 residents. A third planned community, Inspirada in Henderson, is just barely getting under way. When finished, it will have at least 25,000 people spread over 2,000 acres. The Kyle Canyon Gateway project, still in the planning stages, will have 15,000 housing units on 1,700 acres.

Those are just the projects I could think of off the top of my head.

Furthermore, the valley contains literally hundreds of undeveloped parcels of all sizes. Drive along any street, and you'll pass vacant properties randomly scattered throughout the urban landscape. In my northwest neighborhood, reputable home builders recently have discovered some of these neglected remnants and are building attractive subdivisions on them. So obviously it can be done.

Meanwhile, there are 25,000 homes for sale in the valley -- 25,000 existing places for people to live without bulldozing another acre of federal land. And considering the wave of defaults and foreclosures on subprime mortgages, we can expect a bunch more houses to become available soon.

Clearly, the development community is trying to manufacture a crisis where one does not exist.

Richard Lee, vice president of First American Title and head cheerleader for Las Vegas growth, took the fear factor a step further. At an industry conference, he suggested privatizing not just run-of-the-mill public lands around Las Vegas but parts of federally protected areas such as Red Rock Canyon and Lake Mead as well.

Not only is this notion off the table, it's offensive even from the narrow perspective of the development community. The folks building Summerlin will tell you that the presence of federally preserved Red Rock Canyon on the flank of their community has been a tremendous selling point. Red Rock not only draws home buyers to Summerlin, it increases property values there.

People move to Las Vegas for lots of reasons, but some of them stay because they enjoy the natural environment. Red Rock Canyon, Mount Charleston, Lake Mead, Sloan Canyon, Desert National Wildlife Refuge, Valley of Fire -- these are weekend destinations that make living here attractive for thousands of people. These places and others must be protected from the destructive byproducts of privatization.

I don't think there's any doubt the Bureau of Land Management eventually will auction off more federal land around Las Vegas for development. Tens of billions of dollars are committed to construction of Strip resorts over the next decade, and this activity inevitably will spur continued growth.

But the land disposal process must not succumb to developers' hysterics. The releases should be doled out gradually and prudently, based on a range of factors, including whether the highways, schools, water supplies, sewer systems and other services here are ready to absorb more development.

Ask most residents and they'll tell you the highways are more congested today than they have ever been. The school district is short hundreds of teachers. The court system is overburdened. Security and taxi lines at McCarran International Airport are long. The homeless population is among the largest in the country. After seven years of drought on the Colorado River, the availability of water is in question. We have profound issues to address, and all of them are products of the unrelenting growth of the past 20 years.

Rather than clamoring for more federal land right now, developers might want to take a closer look at what they and their political supporters have helped create in Las Vegas. For many regular people going about their lives, the quality of life here is not what it once was. Longtime residents are nostalgic for the days before the 1990s boom. Traffic congestion is a big part of it, but far from the only complaint. The cost of living has risen substantially (and housing is only one piece of that equation). Crime, from petty to violent, from gang shootings to drunken drivers, is a growing worry, and we don't have nearly enough police officers to deal with it.

These and other issues are driving some people away -- to Pahrump, Mesquite, Overton-Logandale, Sandy Valley, St. George, northern Arizona. They still work here, but they prefer to live in places that are smaller, more affordable, less chaotic.

Like many people, I have a love-hate relationship with Las Vegas. This place has been good to my family and me over the years. Culturally, it offers a whole lot more today than it ever did. It has a ton of potential to become a great city.

But our collective reluctance to tackle the big, pressing issues tends to overshadow the community's merits.

The feds can release all the land the developers want, but if people don't want to live here anymore, it won't really matter.

Geoff Schumacher (gschumacher@reviewjournal.com) is Stephens Media's director of community publications. He is the author of "Sun, Sin & Suburbia: An Essential History of Modern Las Vegas." His column appears Sunday.